Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los AngelesMain MenuResearch of the DecadesResearch1960s Illustration DevelopmentIllustration DevelopmentPlaylists of the DecadesPlaylistssparcinla.org185fc5b2219f38c7b63f42d87efaf997127ba4fcGreat Wall Institute - Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC)
1973 Reverend Troy Perry stands in his burned-down church
1media/Screen Shot 2023-03-17 at 1.43.07 PM_thumb.png2023-03-17T20:59:04+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a4912The church has also endured its share of troubles. MCC has faced anti-LGBTQ violence, particularly during what Perry terms a period of persecution in the 1970s when they lost five churches to arson—including a New Orleans gay bar called the Upstairs Lounge where MCC members were holding a meeting; it was the worst mass murder of LGBTQ persons in the U.S. until the Pulse night club massacre in 2016. According to the MCC History Project, their churches began to experience the full brunt of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the mid-1980s; the Rev. Elder Don Eastman wrote that by the time effective HIV treatments became available in 1996, MCC had lost one-third of its congregants. “I don’t believe that any disease, I don’t care what it is, is a gift from God to a class of people,” Perry said to the Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1983 during a televised debate. “We don’t want political games played with this issue. We want to make sure that people don’t die.”plain2023-03-27T22:49:09+00:00Gina Leonf0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49